9.14.26 | Fable 5.1 solves a 370-year-old cipher, Google still serves dodgy ads, Astra and Fable work on alignment evals from 2025

This is a recap of the top 10 posts on Hacker News on Sep 14, 2026.Feel free to leave feedback on Github: https://github.com/denolfe/hacker-news-highlights

(00:00) - Intro

(00:17) - Fable 5.1 Solves the Cyphral Distich, a 370-year-old cipher

(01:34) - Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?

(02:53) - Astra and Fable still hack on simple variants of alignment evals from 2025

(04:17) - Data collected by cars and sold to third parties

(05:37) - Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs

(06:41) - Spaceships (Reverse Asteroid)

(07:51) - Julia 1.13 highlights

(09:00) - Apple's Dimensional Drawings

(10:29) - Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2026)

(11:41) - The case against JPEG XL

(13:08) - Outro

Fable 5.1 Solves the Cyphral Distich, a 370-year-old cipher https://www.vals.ai/blogs/fable-solves-cyphral-distich https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49688695Why is Google still serving dodgy ads? https://www.atomic14.com/2026/09/13/why-is-google-still-serving-dodgy-ads https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49686445 Astra and Fable still hack on simple variants of alignment evals from 2025 https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/munJKF7iWMsWJLAH2/astra-and-fable-still-hack-on-simple-variants-of-alignment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49684393 Data collected by cars and sold to third parties https://www.theverge.com/column/994172/your-car-is-selling-your-data https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49683953 Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs https://community.signalusers.org/t/registration-without-a-phone-number/2222?page=10 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49689048 Spaceships (Reverse Asteroid) https://spaceships.treybastian.com/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49638510 Julia 1.13 highlights https://julialang.org/blog/2026/09/julia-1.13-highlights/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49642645 Apple's Dimensional Drawings https://developer.apple.com/accessories/dimensional-drawings/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49690174 Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2026) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49686380 The case against JPEG XL https://giannirosato.com/blog/post/case-against-jxl/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49690554